Renewables are increasingly becoming more attractive as their costs continue to drop at a stunning pace. Solar and wind plants are now not only significantly cheaper than coal power, as a new report revealed last week, but they’re also putting natural gas to shame. New research shows that the cost of batteries has been declining so unexpectedly quick that renewables plus battery storage are now cheaper than natural gas plants in many applications. The recent study conducted by Bloomberg New Energy Finance reports that electricity prices “for onshore wind, solar PV, and offshore wind have fallen by 49 percent, 84 percent, and 56 percent respectively since 2010”. On top of that, costs for lithium-ion battery storage has dropped 76 percent since 2012 – and plunged 35 percent in the past year alone. These price drops have been global game changers and are expected to smooth out the process of transitioning the world to greener sources of energy.
Better battery storage is helping make renewables cheaper than natural gas
More of Today's Solutions
New method uses sound waves to map soil health, stop famine, and restore farm...
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Across the world, soil scientists are trading in their shovels for something unexpected: seismic sensors. In a breakthrough ...
Read MoreThis simple 15-minute mindset exercise can ease anxiety, science shows
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM A growing body of research is revealing how a short, simple activity that is done in just 15 ...
Read More3 habits of the happiest people
Think of the happiest people you know. Do you find yourself often wondering what they are doing to maintain a general level of joy? ...
Read MoreChangemakers of the week: GRuB and SparkNJ
Every day on the Optimist Daily, we report on solutions from around the world. Though we love solutions big and small, the ones that ...
Read More
